


back to where the magic grew

by theatrythms



Series: we have fixed each other up [2]
Category: IT (2017), Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mike and Richie are twins au, Road Trips, Sibling Bonding, Stranger things x It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-02-23 19:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13196601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theatrythms/pseuds/theatrythms
Summary: (And that is how the search party for the not-missing Richie Tozier begins.)





	1. giving you up (what are you on about)

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO!!  
> okay,,,, this has a few chapters which is exciting
> 
> i know that in the book richies parents are actually semi decent but i was already 7k deep in this before i realised so im really sorry about this!!! ive adopted the concept that theyre Bad mainly bc of that one interview from comic con where finn wolfhard said they werent great so again to any book-lovers reading im sorry !! i actually prefer the idea of his parents being okayish but unfortunatly i didnt do any research (im having fun reading the book tho!)  
> anyway,,, please enjoy!!

When the arcade announced that it’s closing down for summer for some refurbishments, Mike already knew that the summer was gonna be shit.

But he didn’t think this would happen.

“I think it’s Rich.”

“You summoned a party meeting to talk about your brother?” Dustin deadpans.

They’re all sitting under Lucas’ giant oak tree, the best source of refuge from the sun aside from the actual house, and last time they tried to watch a movie in the middle of the day Mrs Sinclair kicked them out. An added bonus is that she brings them fruit pops to eat in the heat.

“It’s a serious meeting!”

“About your brother?” Max raises an eyebrow. The first time Rich met Max last winter break, he ended up wiping out the second he stepped onto her board.

“Maybe we should listen to Mike,” Will suggests, icicle melting down his hand quicker he can eat it. His hair is longer now, now long enough for him to pull it off his neck and into a low pony at the back of his head. “It could be important.”

“It is important!” Mike all but screams, because how is no one else as worried about Rich as he is?!

“What’s going on.” El says, and curls her hand around the wrist he’s propped himself up on.

The rest of them all crowd in, finally showing some level of intrigue when El gets serious. Sometimes Mike wonders who’s the real leader of this party, him, or his telekinetic girlfriend with a head full of bouncing curls.

“When I called him, his dad—our dad I guess—picked up and wouldn’t let me talk to him. He did that for five days and then when I called no one picked up.”

“And?” Lucas asks. “Did he say anything about going on a vacation?”

Mike shakes his head, thinking back through all their last conversations. Rich had said nothing, absolutely nothing, about trips or camps or even upcoming events.

“Rich’s parents aren’t the type to go places.” Well, considering that Rich’s parents are also his parents, he doesn’t know anything about them, bar Spring Break last year. His red pop starts to slide down his wrist and drip onto his cargo shorts. “But he mentioned something about getting into a fight with them, like a week or two before.”

Max sits up a little straighter, moving out from under Lucas’ arm thrown casually over her shoulder. “His parents? You think he’s-”

“In danger? Maybe? I don’t really know, I’m just sort of-”

“Flipping your shit?” Dustin asks, and flicks the blue stained lollipop stick at him.

“Well, considering the fact that my twin brother lives in a town with a child-murdering clown just, hanging around-”

“Rich is in danger?” El asks, brows knitted. Her hair is much longer than the first time Mike had ever met her, but unlike Will’s, her hair grows up instead of down, and when she forgets the various assortment of colored ribbons Hopper bought her, her curls stick up like a bird’s nest, wild and untamable.

Mike nods, solemnly, but also feels this deep set of dread, and he can’t tell if it’s from worrying about his brother or the fact it sounds like he’s looking for help from his friends. But it had dragged on way too long now, and in the deepest parts of Mike he knows it’s silly to feel so vulnerable in front of your friends.

“Well,” Will says, with such a clever air about him Mike is half tempted to whack him around the head. “Why don’t you ask Jane to use her powers to see where he is? If he’s in Derry then he’s safe. Simple.”

El nods, looking at her brother-but-also-not-brother.

(It will never, ever, not be weird for Mike that his best friend and his girlfriend not only live together, carpool to school together, and have the most overprotective people in the state co-parenting them, but that they’re also partners in crime, always whispering when the party hangs out, or quoting inside jokes and talking in this vague, wide eyed state of communication.)

“I’ll find Rich,” she says firmly, squeezing his wrist and smiling brightly at him.

Lucas sighs defeatedly, looking back into the house as everyone else gets up to brush the grass from their shorts and shoes. He just stays sitting, flopped out on the ground. “Mom is gonna flip if she sees us inside.”

“C’mon dummy, it’s for the greater good.” Max nudges her boyfriend with her foot.

“Greater good?” He calls after her, scrambling to get back up and join the rest of them. “I am the greatest good you are ever gonna get!”

(And that is how the search party for the not-missing Richie Tozier begins.)

-

If El is being honest, not spending the entirety of summer inside of s sweaty arcade sounds like a perfect summer to her. Which is probably why she blew the AC on the third day of summer, and fried every server in the place.

“I hope you know that this is a sacred item I’m letting you borrow.”

El nods, her serious composure written in the way she gently holds up her hands to take camouflage bandana from Lucas. It’s the closest they have to a blindfold, but it’ll have to work for now. She’s used her hands before, but that hardly had the same effect.

“Thank you, Lucas.” She says, and wraps it around her eyes while Max flicks the TV on.

Mike gives her one last smile, one of his warm ones, so his lips peel back to show off his teeth. Clumsily in the dark she reaches for him, squeezing his hand before being handed the crumpled photograph Mike keeps in his wallet, of him and Rich last summer, the second summer Richie had spent in Hawkins, one loose arm wrapped around Mike’s shoulders and a pile of bikes on the floor in front of them.

She zones everything out. Eleven just focuses on the static from the TV, and worms her way through the frequency waves until she’s found what she’s looking for.

At the back of the dark, empty space, can see nothing for a while. She worries her lip, cautiously stepping forward, wondering which way is forward she which way is back.

“Rich?” She calls out hesitantly. She knows now that no one can hear her, other than Will, when she tries reaching into the plank space. Recently, the blank space has stopped reaching back.

Out of the murky abyss comes Richie Tozier, a pile of gangly limbs, black curly hair, and thick round rim glasses. He sits on a window, disjointed from the room, staring pensively out of it.

“Rich?” She stalls closer, always on the lookout for something dangerous, hidden in the emptiness. In these two years there has been no shadow monster and no demogorgons, the gate firmly sealed shut, melded together with El’s powers.

But it still doesn’t mean they should be careless.

(And it doesn’t mean the nightmares have gotten better.)

(Now El goes to the same therapist Will goes to, sometimes at the same time, just to talk to someone with almost no connections to the rest of the story.)

“And your mom won’t be back until tomorrow?” Richie calls out, pushing his hair back, so El can see the bright blue bruise blossomed on the side of his pale cheek, yellow petals hidden under, a new bruise on top of old.

“Yeah, don’t worry, I checked with her.” A new voice filters his way into the black, working it’s way from the emptiness and into reality. A shorter boy, thin, with smooth tan skin and dark brown eyes stands next to Richie, just next to the windowsill. “She’s at a bridge convention in New Jersey, whatever that means, so you’re good.” He wets his lips, nervously, pulling on his arm. “Are you doing okay Richie?”

“Just peachy.” Richie mutters, baring all of his teeth. El creeps closer, until it’s as if she’s in the room with them, sitting in the corner and watching them speak.

“You can talk to me about it, you know you can.” The boy fumbles for words, until he grabs Richie’s hand and forces him to look at him. “I want you, to talk to me about this.”

“It’s fine, Eds-”

“It’s bullshit!” Eds exclaims, suddenly all enraged. “Your parents threw you out. You’re homeless, Rich, and you won’t even tell me what happened!”

“Eds,” Richie says, standing up, so they’re facing each other. Except Eds has to point his head practically vertical if he wants to talk to his face, and Richie’s head hangs low. “Please, can we not talk about it?” Richie’s arms wind around Eds’ middle and-

Oh.

Oh.

They’re kissing, lightly, the way she and Mike do sometimes, but not very often. El understands privacy well enough to realise that this is something she should not be seeing, and as quickly as she can she rips off the bandanna, more frazzled than anything. She always feels so intrusive after doing that. Like an awkward fly hovering around. Like she shouldn’t be there. Like it’s wrong to use her powers like that, even when all she’s ever used it for is finding lost people.

“Well?” Mike worries his lip, taking the photo from her hands to stare down intently at it. She debates starting with what she saw, only to remember what Will told her a while ago, about the outliers to her cardinal rule of never lying to friends.

(“But isn’t that lying?”

“Secrets aren’t necessarily lies, Jane, just, they’re things you don’t tell other people because you don’t want to.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to?” She cocked her head, sending the massive hat she wore slanting to the left.

And Will had looked down, then out at the surroundings, through the slivers of light breaking through the tall branches of Castle Byers. Late January was moving into early February, the small buds on the trees only beginning to emerge after winter.

“Because, er, you might just not want to.” He said, shifting his body into a whole new position, arms wrapped around his knees. “Or, you don’t want them to know, so you keep it to yourself. Or,” he stopped then, eyes falling downcast and almost gloomy.

“Or,” El prodded, peering right into his eyes, head pushed forward. This was when El was only getting to grasps with social cues, like what to say and what not to say in each situation. “Or what, Will?” His big brown eyes, normally bright and light, were dull looking, and almost sad.

“Or,” he gestured awkwardly. “Or you think it’d be better off if no one found out. I mean, no one gets hurt if no one knows, right?”

Will changed the subject after that, but El is always, always thinking about it, but doesn’t know how to bring it up without Will getting that dead, dull looks to his eyes.)

“His parents,” her voice wavers, still thinking about Richie and his Eds, and if she should tell Mike or not. She thinks back to what Eds said, trying to mimic his quick voice and high strung words. “‘Threw him out’?” She repeats, and it's enough to make poor Mike’s face drop.

-

When Mike suggests—no, not suggests, demands—that they all go off to Maine, Lucas is half tempted to tell him to shut the hell up, and half tempted let him ramble until someone else thinks of a better idea.

Only when Mike pulls out the maps kept in Lucas’ hall table’s drawer, does Lucas realise that they are indeed, going to Maine.

“It’ll take us almost nineteen hours to get there. Nineteen Mike!” Dustin yells, but still helps with pulling out the big one, the cross country one, where the major roads and motorways are littered across the yellow shape of America in reds and greens and blues.

“And that’s just driving,” Max quips, and Lucas’ heads swivels because how dare she, a traitor to her own boyfriend. “we’re not thinking about eating and sleeping.”

“Do you have any experience with long distance driving?” Will asks her, in his polite Will fashion, because if anyone else were to ask it would sound like an accusation.

Max just shrugs, kneeling down to trace the US Route 1 that’s a thin red line from south to north. “It’s how we got from California.”

This all sparks a long, howling groan from them all, even El, whose eyes are drawn to the mess of lines and maps all around her, pupils darting from place to place, almost like she’s planning something, or thinking very, very hard.

That’s when it clicks for Lucas. He sits next to El and tries to follow her head movements, as she runs the tips of her fingers from one map to the other, like she’s drawing them together. “Map.” She kneels back, nodding at Lucas.

“See, we don’t need maps, El’s the best navigator we could have!” That seems to put everyone in a better mood, now that getting lost or being stranded won’t be an issue thanks to El.

“I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade here,” Will says, one eyebrow raised. “But uh, how are we gonna get to Maine, since we’re all almost fifteen and none of us can drive?”

“The bus.” Mike immediately states, turning around and digging into the pile of sheets to look for the bus timetable.

“Mike, have you forgotten that we have to crowdfund our trips to the arcade, and how many times we’ve just hung around there without money, just to have something to do? Do you think we,” Dustin, deadpan as ever, gesturing to the lot of them. “Could afford to buy bus tickets to Maine for all of us.” It makes El and Will giggle uncontrollably, while Mike starts to pout.

“He does make a good argument,” Lucas points out. “I mean, any time Richie was here your parents paid for the ticket.”

“Well we can’t just leave him!” Mike yells with a frustrated sigh, pulling at the ends of his wild, overgrown curls. “He could be in trouble.”

“He is in trouble.” El says insistently. “His face was hurt.”

“It still doesn’t solve the whole… getting there problem.” Max teases out, pulling on the ends of her hair. It’s longer now, draping all the way down her back in a wave of bright, vibrant red, and always smells like cherries, and in the almost-six months they’ve been dating Lucas has found that his favorite hobby is to plant his face in the back of her neck and stay there for a while, either sleeping or maybe even crying.

Dustin sits up. “Well I can’t go today, I have plans later.”

“Plans?” Mike looks genuinely offended. “We have to leave, as soon as possible.”

Dustin’s face slacks but tightens, until he’s letting out a low whine. “But Steve’s visiting from Chicago! He promised to take me driving!”

The party all looks at each other, the same idea running around their head like they’re all part of the same circuit. When it gets back to Dustin, that’s when he realises what he said.

“That’s how we’re getting to Maine, isn’t it?”

-

At twelve o’clock on the dot, Steve is waiting outside the Henderson house, and the closer Dustin gets he sees the deeply unamused expression written on the nineteen year old’s face.

“Steven! My good man! You look perplexed.” Dustin pokes his head through the open window, pouting at him. “Rough day in Chicago?”

“I did not wake up, at 6am, on a Saturday, just so you could flake on our lesson.”

“I know, I know, and what a devoted mentor you are but there is something I must ask of you.”

Steve’s head turns, squinting from under dark sunglasses. He’s hungover, it seems, and that oddly enough warms some part of Dustin’s heart that he’s still so devoted to making sure he can drive. Probably so that he doesn’t have to drive him around anymore. “Yeah?”

(And Dustin knows, deeply, that Steve doesn’t have to. But once on the phone Dustin mentioned how Mike and Lucas’ dads were already beginning to take them out to teach them the rules of the road, while Dustin’s mom’s car was still parked in the garage next to his dad’s. It’s awkward, having a social recluse for a mom, who’d rather spend all day inside with her cat than do simple things like go to his parent’s evenings at school, or teach him to drive, or drive at all. His dad died five months before they moved from Gary to Hawkins, and Dustin’s memories are that one day his dad was there and the next he wasn’t.)

“Do you know a certain Richard Tozier?” Dustin inquires.

“Richie? Mike’s long lost twin?”

Dustin nods, climbing into the car awkwardly. They’ve all decided to meet at Will’s house at one, with snacks, spare clothes, money, and hopefully, if Dustin delivers, a way to Maine. “Yeah, he came over that summer you and Nancy were still dating.”

“Yeah,” Steve says distractedly, starting the car with a smooth purr. “So, where are we going today? Back roads around at the Byers’-”

“Can you take me to Maine?” He interrupts, batting his eyelashes at Steve’s stunned expression. “Pretty please.”

“Get out of the car Dustin-”

“What! Steve-”

“That’s the dumbest thing I think you have ever requested.”

“It’s not that bad! Oh come on Steve don’t be like that!”

(They bicker the entire way to Will’s house. Dustin realises halfway that Steve is still technically yet to say no to driving to Maine.)

-

Steve thinks he responded perfectly normal to the request of being asked to drive all the way to the top most Northern state in the continental USA. What he grasps from Dustin’s hurried blow-by-blow of the situation, Steve actually begins to understand why Dustin Henderson, and all of his freaky weird friends, are some of the nicest people he’s ever met.

“So that’s why we have to go to Maine! He got kicked out by his family! And according to Mike, who’s like, his brother, they’re absolute dicks to him, and like, couldn’t give a shit about him.”

Even if Steve’s only encounter with this Richie Tozier was back when he and Nancy were still together, he can relate to that, only he managed to avoid fall under the radar, and high tailed the fuck out of Hawkins at the first opportunity.

(But his parents pay for school, and rent, and his car and insurance and sometimes he can’t help but wonder is he making a bigger deal out of how they treated him. Does having financial support excuse a lonely childhood, a pawn to use when one parent was acting up, when someone’s affair wasn’t discreet enough for the greater Hawkin’s area.)

“Yeah, can’t imagine that being too fun.” He murmurs, pulling up in the dirt driveway of the Byers’ house. On the front porch, six teenagers dressed in summer gear and a pile of bags at their feet are huddled together, their heads swiveling to the sound of the car. Joyce and Hopper stand awkwardly at the door, Joyce’s head resting on his shoulder. When Steve gets out they straighten up a little, crawling over the pile of teenagers to reach him.

“Hi, uh, hi Steve.” Joyce stutters out, pushing a piece of hair behind her ear. “I just wanna say, really, this is, a really nice thing you’re doing, for all the kids. It just,” she looks at Hopper, a silent conversation between the two frazzled parents.

“It really puts us at ease, knowing you’re gonna be there too.” Hopper finishes, grinning brightly at her. “With your bat with nails in it.”

Steve looks over their heads to Dustin, who’s congregated with his friends now. “They told you about-”

“Camping? Yeah, Jane seemed really excited when she asked,” Hopper flushes, then digs through his pockets to pull his keys out. “She said you’d need these to fit everything in.”

Steve wordlessly takes the keys, just as the hoard of kids all look on in anticipation, shoulders hunched forward. Oh fuck me, Steve thinks, groaning inside, that only gets worse once Jonathan’s beat up car comes in behind him, and Nancy gets out with her new bleached hair, and that cute orange sundress with the slim brown belt.

(Sometimes Steve thinks he’s over Nancy, then she comes home from New York for a weekend, the same time he’s in Hawkins, and he’s doing something mundane like buying milk with unwashed hair and she just floats in, smelling like a field of flowers and looking like an artsy New Yorker with a pale pink beret.)

“Hey Steve,” she waves, and Jonathan does too. “Just give us a second to go change, kay?”

“Wait?” He asks, desperately trying to get some answers, as both Nancy and Jonathan pass him by, fingers tangled together. “You’re going… camping, too?”

Nancy nods, but not in her sweet-all-American-girl way, in her badass-Nancy-way, eyes set firm and shoulders pushed back. So she must know about Maine, which proves that he’s not the only ‘adult’ around. Which means they’re going behind Joyce and Hopper’s backs, which explains why El and Will look so goddamn excited.

“But uh,” Hopper leans in really close, too close for comfort with the gun still strapped to his waist. “If you hurt her, I swear to god, I will kill you.” He stalks off after that, heading back toward El to parrot some instructions back to her.

“Do you mean Jane, or the truck?”

Dustin hobbles up to him when they all pile into the truck. A week long camping trip means they’re losing two days getting to Maine, which allows for about ten hours for breaks while on the road.

“You told the police chief we’re going camping?”

“Oh, that wasn’t us!” Dustin says, shrugging, even with his giant backpack stacked against his back. “That was Will and El, they somehow convinced Mrs Byers and Hopper that they should take a break or something. I think they’re going to some resort.”

It explains the awkward touching, and the nerves. Most parents would be anxious sending their children off into the woods for a week of camping, but the fact that it’s El and Will, and Joyce and Hopper, it makes sense why they’re suddenly so on edge.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Steve swears, after parking his car neatly in the Byers’ front lawn, so it’s not just left abandoned on the side of the road.

“Well, you don’t have to, if you don’t want to.” Nancy says, now dressed in what Steve can only describe as combat gear, green cargo shorts and a black loose top.

Steve scoffs at that, suddenly not knowing what to do with his hands. “I know that, I’m still gonna go anyway.” He looks over to them bitching about who gets to sit where, why separating the couples is the only way to achieve total harmony all the way to Maine, and checking everyone had gone to the bathroom. “They’d be lost without me.”

Jonathan laughs at that, halfway between a snort and a giggle, if that should even exist. “Yeah, I think we all would to be honest.”

(Does Jonathan remember just after the Demogorgon attacked his house? And Steve’s face was still all fucked up but Jonathan helped wash any dried blood off him.)

It makes him just a little too happy, to hear that coming from Jonathan Byers.

(Yeah. Steve remembers.)

“I grabbed you some extra clothes, just some stuff of mine, if that’s okay?” Jonathan hands him a plastic bag full of clean smelling clothes and smiles at him.

“Ahhhh, yeah! That’s great, thank you?” He awkwardly stutters out, breath caught in his chest since he has no idea what to say in this situation. Instead of dealing with that he spins on his heel and faces the kids.

“Alright load up! We’re leaving in five minutes and if you’re not in that truck than I’ve forgotten you on purpose!”

“Steve what the hell-”

“Don’t be a jacksss!”

“Have you seen the line for the toilet?!”

(It’s gonna be one hell of a road trip. But at least, at least, there’s nothing overly supernatural at the end of it all.)

(Hopefully.)

 


	2. irresolution doesn't suit you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you enjoy !!! thank you so much for all your lovely comments!!!  
> Happy New Year whenever you are!!!!! I wish you all a lovely new year!!
> 
> another quick ps  
> i know absolutely nothing abt american geography. i used google and looked at the map and guessed which states and locations theyd be passing through on the drive (i had no clue where indiana was until this started.) for context i'm from ireland, and it takes you less than three hours to get from east coast to west coast (even less on a train) so i apologize if i sound like i have no clue what i'm writing bc i genuinely am,,,,, clueless  
> (irish rep in this chap lads bc i CAN and i WILL)

They get to Philadelphia after eight hours of driving, slowly climbing their way North in Hopper’s beat up van. Nine people in one car on one of the hottest days makes for a cramped, irritable trip. Despite this, it’s better, and everything, Max could ever hope for in a road trip.

“I swear to God if you don’t stop fighting back there I will, so help me Lord above, turn this goddamn car around.”

Steve is, unsurprisingly, the most irritated, primarily due to the amount of driving he’s done. It’s him Jonathan and Nancy in the front, then initially it started with Dustin, Lucas and Max in the middle, then El, Will and Mike. Then when a scrap about what type of trail mix is the ultimate type broke out between Will and Mike, they had to be separated, so from Columbus to Harrisburg, it’s been Dustin, Lucas and Mike all piled into the front, then El, Will and Max, gossiping and sharing their trail mix in the back.

It’s honestly the best fun Max has ever had. Mainly because as much as she likes Dustin and Lucas and Mike, she feels like she never gets to talk to Will and El all that much.

Well, it’s mainly just her and Will that talk, El likes to listen. It’s not that El can’t talk, it’s just she chooses not to. She reads a lot now, so her vocabulary is full of words like ostentatious and malicious. Finding her incorporate them into everyday life never fails to bring a smile to everyone’s face, even Mr Clarke, who just straight up doesn’t know how to respond.

And Max has met Richie twice times, the first time being the Christmas after she’d moved to Hawkins, and summer last year. No one had told her something as important or as interesting that Mike had an identical twin brother who visited during holidays.

(“Uhm, Mike?”

The boy had the same face, same hair, and roughly the same height, and dark eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses. He was raiding the Wheeler’s fridge when Max was let in by Mrs Wheeler, who sent her directly to the basement before asking her how Christmas in California had been.

“Ah Jeez,” the boy scoffed, arms piled high with boxes of cookies and Christmas leftovers. “You didn’t tell me you met Annie since the last time I saw you.”

“Hey!” Max had yelled, already stomping over to give this Mike-imposter a piece of her mind when the real Mike stepped out, cutting them across.

“Ignore him.” Mike didn’t seem too phased, just took a box of cookies and began the descent downstairs. “Max, this is Rich, Rich, this is Max.”

“Why do you guys look,” when they stood side by side, they were completely identical, in every way, shape a form, right down to the freckles covering their cheeks, and their cracky awkward voices. “The exact same.”

“Well,” Rich began, clapping his hands together. “Sometimes, during fertilization, the egg splits, and two identical-”

“Richie is my twin brother who lives in Maine with my birth parents. He visits during holidays.”

Richie did a small now, extending an imaginary hat to her. “Pleasure to meet ya, m’dear.”

Max just glared at Lucas, walloping him hard in the arm. “I thought you said no more secrets!”

“But he’s not a secret! I just forgot about him!”

“Lucas Skywalker Sinclair, how dare you forget about lil’ ol’ me!”)

But driving for eight hours is making everyone a little stir crazy. They stop at a truck stop just outside of New York, with a quirky little diner nestled around the mass amounts of U-Hauls and eighteen wheelers. It looks relatively safe, neon lights spreading out like beacons in the dark, fuchsia and cyan flooded down on them. Steve kills the ignition with a long, heavy sigh, cracking his neck while everyone reaches for door handles in a fruitless attempt to escape.

“You have twenty five minutes before we pull out.”

Jonathan opens the boot, helps Will and El and her down with a sturdy hand. Dustin and Mike are already running towards the neon diner, but Lucas stays back to wait for her, holding his hand out for her to take.

It’ll been two years since she moved to Indiana in October, two years since she met Lucas Sinclair, and all his weird freaky friends. Normally, if it’s with everyone else, she’d push his hand away, but since it’s just them, she winds her fingers into his until they’re a knot of joints and fingernails, tight and loose all at once. Six months ago, weeks before he turned fifteen and three months after she turned fourteen, he asked her out. They’re yet to go on an actual date or anything like that, but she calls him boyfriend and he waits around after classes to hang out with her at the skatepark.

(Her mom is always asking about him, but only when Billy and her stepdad are out of the house.)

“Thanks for waiting.” She says, and he responds by leaning down and kissing her on the forehead.

-

“Bring Steve a burger, won’t you?” Nancy says, speaking lowly above the chatter of their diner booth. “I’ll stay with the kids.” She hands him a wrapped warm burger and asks with her eyes again.

Jonathan can hardly say no.

“Sure, sure.” He nudges Will and Dustin and El out of the booth to let him out. Six teenagers all shuffled into a deep mauve booth, the only noise in the entire place amongst the pensive, contemplative truckers drinking coffee and bourbon. Steve decided to stay in the truck to sleep, demanding not to be bothered unless it was an actual world ending emergency that would require a bat with nails embedded in it.

Jonathan stares down at the wrapped burger, walking back to the counter to order a vanilla milkshake to go, just in case the burger seemed cheap.

Two years on, Jonathan still has no idea how to act around Steve Harrington.

There is of course, the obvious awkwardness, since Nancy and Steve are exes and Jonathan is the new boyfriend (of two years). Even after him and Nancy started going out, Steve was still just as nice, as funny, as kind to Jonathan and all his brother’s friends, despite how shit the situation was. Steve hadn’t kept anything personal against him or Nancy, because if he was willing to drive eight people cross-country with his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend, then there must be nothing wrong.

Jonathan looked down at the burger and shake again, suddenly questioning everything.

Unless Steve does hold a grudge, and is just really, really talented at hiding it.

Jonathan walks up to the car to find Steve’s head resting on the steering wheel, his eyes wide open in deep contemplation. Jonathan raps on the window to get his attention, holding up the goods with a cocked head.

“Figured you’d need some food.”

“Oh,” Steve mumbles, acting as if he’d just woken up from the deepest, longest sleep of all time, even going as far as rubbing fake sleep from his eyes. “Oh, thanks man.”

Jonathan shrugged, opening the door. “Budge up won’t ‘ya?”

Steve furrows his brows. “You don’t wanna go back inside?” He still moves over to the second seat in the front, Nancy’s seat, and takes the food.

“Nancy’s with the kids, they don’t really need,” Jonathan struggles to find the words for a minute, pausing to watch Steve ingulf a bite of the burger. “A chaperone, or anything.”

“That’s why you’re here?” Steve wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Double bacon and cheese, how’d you guess?”

“Uh,” That heavy awkwardness comes back. “Nancy ordered it.”

“Ah,” Steve nods, in a sort of self-deprecating way. “She knows me too well.”

Before Jonathan can comment, Steve shifts the conversation again, taking a long slurp of the milkshake. “So how did the kids get you agree to this? I mean, I thought you wouldn’t be so crazy for it either.”

Jonathan chuckles, thinking about Will’s ‘puppy dog eyes’ trying to wrangle him into the truck. “I did genuinely think we were going camping, actually.”

Steve barks out a laugh, loud amongst the silence of the car park. “For real? That’s insane.”

“Yeah, Nancy told me that they were planning a camping trip, then mom asked me to go for Will’s sake, then once we’d gotten changed Nance told me about Operation Maine.”

“Is that what they’re calling it?”

Jonathan wrinkles his nose. “Not the best operation name.”

“Nancy seems,” Steve stops, probably to think of what to say next. “Dedicated, to this, if that makes sense.”

“She knows Richie pretty well. They met up in Augusta one of the first months we were in New York.”

Steve rolls up the burger packaging, stowing it into the black plastic bag that’s the official truck bin to avoid Hopper from killing someone. It’s not the most spacious, but the man does keep it damn clean. “Yep, thats Nancy for you.”

The awkward returns, this time with more force as they have nothing else to talk about. Steve just drinks his shake with his eyes out the window, watching the diner sign spin in the sky. His eyes are bloodshot, hair mussed from all the driving he’s done exhaustion heavy on his shoulders.

“Soooo...”

“So...” Steve echoes.

“How’s Chicago? Still playing basketball?”

“Uh, windy, very windy. And uh, no,” he shakes his head. “I left basketball in high school.”

“Oh,” is all Jonathan says, and they lapse back into that silence that Jonathan can’t stand but can’t explain why. He doesn’t really have any obligation to do anything for Steve, but he can’t help but worry that he might not be having a good time, or wallowing.

(Well, Jonathan has half an idea why he cares so much about Steve’s well-being, and Nancy does too, so if they could just gather up some semblance of courage to talk to him things might be better and no one would have to suffer these long awkward silences.)

“Look, Steve-”

“Wait is that Dustin? And the rest of them?”

Sure enough, the six kids and Nancy are barreling their way towards the car, the boot and doors sliding open in a crescendo of loud noises and harsh metal.

“Drive!” Mike pants, pulling the door after him. When Jonathan doesn’t react immediately, he’s hit with a wall of screaming teenagers, even Nancy, who’s sitting at the passenger door next to Steve, looking breathless.

“What’s going on!?” Steve roars above the noise, silencing them all instantly. “Dustin, why are you all screaming?”

“El flipped this biker dude’s drink all over him because he tried to flirt with Nancy, and now his hoard of biker friends are out to get us!”

“That can’t be true-” Jonathan claims, until, surely enough, there’s a mob running toward them, most defiantly armed with something other than just NRA membership for getting shown up by a load of teenagers. He jams the key in the ignition, the car breathing to life and pulling out of the car park just as the back of the car has a rock—or a shoe—thrown at it.

Once they’re well away from the diner, Nancy huffs out a little laugh, then Steve joins in. Jonathan takes his eyes off the road for a split second, just for his heart to melt at the sight.

Right, it seems that deep conversation needs to happen, but not right now.

-

The motel is Mike’s idea—no, his insistence. The clock turns one o'clock while they’re brushing the border with New York, full of suburbs and small towns. They’re nowhere near the actual city, but apparently El needs a TV to be able to see if Richie is still in Maine, as if he’d disappeared across state lines up to Canada in a day, as if El’s powers don’t extend further than the Great Lakes. He’s half-asleep half-awake, words slurring as he rouses the sleeping truck, almost yelling at Will. They’ve been driving for almost eleven hours now, Will stuck in the middle since he’s the shortest, and thanks to El, they find a little cozy motel on some spooky backroads that add another hour onto the trip.

Will doesn’t really mind. He doesn’t mind sleeping in cars, but he doesn’t like the way the twiggy branches hit against the van, and all the noises that echo around him. This is the furthest out of state Will has ever been, he’s never even been to New York to visit Jonathan. Lying to mom was risky, but it’s blame he’ll share with El, he guesses.

“Maybe we’ll see the Jersey Devil hanging around here.” Dustin says, hopping out of the back of the car, letting out a long, exaggerated yawn, and cracking his shoulders.

“We’d have to actually be in Jersey to find that, dumbass.” Steve mutters.

“It’s a sluther, my good man, it’s not bound to any location-”

El giggles beside him, tucking a curl behind her ear, the stars beaming down at them all as they wait on the side of the motel. Nancy, Jonathan and Steve head inside, up old creaking steps of the porch bathed in vibrant yellow light. It’s called the Sunshine House, and faces the east to let all the rooms watch the sunrise.

“What’s so funny?” He asks, grin broadening. On good days, he’s taller than El, unlike tonight, when both of them took their shoes off in the car to try and be more comfortable.

“Mike.” She says, and points to their friend being held up by Lucas and Max, half asleep in their arms, mumbling and rambling about TVs and clowns and Maine, always Maine.

Curse Mike Wheeler, and his good-guy attitude, the way he always tries to save everyone. It’s annoying, but probably the only reason why Will is alive in the first place.

(Mike once told him he would’ve been able to get out of the Upside Down by himself regardless, but Will isn’t so sure. Somewhere, deep down he knows he lost himself in that decaying world of grey and dead light and no warmth but knows he could’ve lost a lot more if it wasn’t for Mike and El, and the rest of the party, and mom, who really did not want to give up.)

“Who’s paying for this by the way?” Dustin asks, as they all huddle into the lobby.

“That’d be me.” Steve states, producing two matching room keys.

“What do we say to Steve?” Nancy says softly behind him. Nancy is good with kids and otherwise immature teenagers, which makes sense, because Nancy wants to be a biology teacher.

“Thank you!” A chorus breaks out, sleepy Mike echoing the sentiments, then dropping his head back down and snoring again.

“Boys’ room and girls’ room, there we go.”

“We have to, we have to check on Rich.” Mike mumbles up the stairs.

El cups his face, his eyes hazy and open in the dim lighting. “The morning.” She says, tapping his nose, making him smile.

(It’s not weird-weird, seeing his first crush and his step-sister interact so organically together. Mike and El aren’t dating like the way Max and Lucas are, but they have shy, tender moments like holding hands and brushing hair out of faces and Mike putting his head on El’s shoulder when they watch movies. Ever since that started, Will’s lasting crush seemed to fizzle off like melt in your mouth sweets, but he still hasn’t, and will never, tell Mike that the attraction existed at all.)

Six boys, two double beds and one pull out sofa means that everyone has a bed buddy. Steve and Jonathan awkwardly pair up, because there would be nothing more mortifying that sharing a bed with your older brother. Mike and Dustin are passed out on top of their sheets, still in their clothes. Once they get the pull out sofa for Lucas and Will sorted, Will hears a little knock on the door, the secret one, the one he’s used to hearing all the time between El and Hopper.

“Jane?” He whispers into the mostly dark corridor. At the carpet staircase, her little mess of curls is seen, hunched over slightly.

“Jane?” He creeps closer tapping her on the shoulder. That gets her attention, and with her brown eyes blown wide, Will’s worry grows. “Hey, what’s wrong? Is it the diner today? That wasn’t your fault! He was a creep!”

“Not the diner.” She says, and draws her knees up against her chest.

“Janey,” He says softly, the same nickname his mom and Hopper use for her. To the party she’s El, because she’s always been El to them, but at home, everyone calls her Jane, or Jay, or Janey. She’s always been Jane to Will, because that’s the name she used when she first met him, when she came back to her home in the woods and found a sweaty teenage boy lying on the ground. “You can tell me.”

“I hate secrets.”

This is an odd thing for El to have. Normally she asks questions, like how gravity works, or why apples grow from seeds, or why the sky is blue and why the leaves are green. Her moral, social, political questions have never been welcomed, like when she asked Ted Wheeler why Nixon was a bastard because she’d heard Hopper call him that.

(Varying opinions. Ted Wheeler is a draft dodger and Jim Hopper is a Vietnam Vet.)

But never statements really. She’s getting used to speaking her mind, putting out her opinions in more than one words.

“What sort of secret are you hiding?”

She looks really glum, her front lip sucking on her bottom lip, chin dug into her arms. She feels guilty, Will guesses, like keeping a secret is driving her crazy.

“I saw Rich kiss someone. When I found him.”

Will let’s out a quiet exhale, shaking his head as his heart rate calms down. “Jane, that’s not really a secret.”

“But Mike doesn’t know. That makes it a secret. Like you said,” and she emulates his voice. “Mike can’t know.”

(One late January night, Will had snuck out. El woke up, got scared, and looked for him with a polaroid of the two of them outside the arcade.)

“This is because of what I said in February?”

(El found him alright. Sitting in Castle Byers with a sketchbook and pages and pages of drawings of Seán Reilly, the Irish kid with bright red hair and deep green eyes. One of the only Catholics in Hawkins, he was nice, probably the only other boy his age that liked art, and never, ever, called him Zombie Boy.)

(El put one and one together and ended up with Will’s deepest, darkest secret.)

El just nods. “I saw him kissing a boy.”

(“You cannot tell Mike! Do you understand! Mike or anyone else cannot know!” Will remembers shouting, feeling like there was no air left in his chest, feeling like his head was going to fall off his shoulders. It felt like he’d take one million years in the Upside Down over one second of ever being seen. El had stood there horrified, because even though her and Hopper have some truly terrifying screaming matches over the most mundane things, Will would never yell at her.)

(Seán still doesn’t call him zombie boy, but he did call him a fag, once when he was hanging out with all his friends from church.)

“Jane, I didn’t mean that you can’t tell Mike everything, just that,” he runs a hand through his hair, grunting in frustration under his breath. This is his fault, making El so scared, just because he couldn’t handle the idea of the rest of the party knowing.

(“But why are you keeping a secret?” El asked him, her hat falling into her eyes, Castle Byers keeping them locked away from the outside. “Why hide that you like Seán-” Are in love with him. Like me and Mike.)

(Will doesn’t think he even liked Seán at all.)

(“Because, just.” He didn’t know what else to say. “I just don’t want them to know.” He pulled her gloved hands into his, breathing slowly, pushing their foreheads together. “Please Jane, can we just keep this a secret between us. Just this one secret.”

“But isn’t that lying?”)

“If it’s Richie’s secret then we can’t tell Mike, okay?” He says, asking himself what he’d want. If Richie truly doesn’t know, it’s not fair for Richie to tell him. “That’s all it is.”

El is hardly an idiot. She’s smart in so many ways people discredit her for. She understands things easily, managed to catch up to them even though Hawkin’s lab stopped her education when she turned ten. Her shoulders unfurl as she relaxes, resting her head on his, as if confiding in Will and talking through it with him makes her feel better, and Will feels sick to his stomach for making her lie just so he can sleep at night, without worrying that one of them would find out.

(All he can think about is his dad. And the way Dad called him a queer to his face once that ended up with mom throwing him out and changing the locks. Will doesn’t want to admit it in case it proves that his dad was right, and mom threw him out for stating nothing more than the truth.)

“C’mon,” Will nudges her, waking her from drifting off. “Let’s get to bed?”

Will ends up asleep on the sofa with her, lying in some sort tops and tails position, a dreadful creak in his neck thanks to the small pillow.

It puts El at ease though, having someone you love so close. She likes to go looking for reassurance that she’s not the bad guy here, and neither of them know when she starting going straight to Will for that confidence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like i just need to get this off my chest but ive aged them up to fifteen bc im not totally comfortable writing them in serious relationships , so thats why el and mike arent actually 'dating' but do have feelings for each other. i'm 17 now and know people that were in relationships from 13 or 14 that were happy and long term but idk its more bc i'm not making the whole series abt their romantic relationships. at the end of the day its abt mike and richie with those details just additional points of plot  
> also i really dont understand how american school grades work and ive aged them up too far for them to be going into freshman year :/ so im sorry for those inconsistencies but it was either age them down or make them high schoolers already and the culture of 80s america is WILDLY different to 80s ireland so any of my preexisting knowledge of this time period was like,,,,, 20 years behind america  
> okay thank you so much for reading !!!  
> (ps. u can find me on tumblr / twitter @noctisfairs where i post abt writing)


	3. a fraction of your happy heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy new year!! i hope you all had a lovely time!! this chapter has more richie, more lumax and more steve and dustin ,,, my three favorite things abt writing this

She wakes to hear Mike yelling from outside the door. Nancy towel drying her hair in the foggy mirror of the tiny bathroom, while Max is nowhere to be seen. Even Will’s gone, leaving a little note on the coffee table to tell her where he is.

“C’mon guys! Up’n’at’em! We got eight more hours of driving today!”

Nancy opens the door with a stern expression. “It is six am Mike, do you want to wake up the entire building.”

Mike just scoffs, pushing past her to get to the sofa, grinning awkwardly at El. It makes her stomach flutter still, whenever he has that lopsided grin on, eyes all wide. They call it Mike’s ‘heart-eyes face’ and it’s reserved only for her.

“Morning,” he greets, leaning over to kiss her on the cheek.

“Hi.” She says back, and takes his slightly sweaty hand in her own slightly sweaty hand.

“Are we doing it now?” Steve pops his head in the door, waist wrapped in a towel.

“Uh, no, I think we’re gonna have breakfast first.” Nancy stammers out, while Mike stifles a laugh.

El looks around at the mustard yellow walls, the light streaming through the big window gazing out at the fields under the motel. Well, it’s actually a B&B, with neat little pillow candies and individual towels. Mike’s hair is inky and disheveled against the warm butter walls, curls sticking out at all angels.

“Where’s Max?”

“Her and Lucas went down for breakfast first.” Mike shrugs, still in the clothes from last night, a cream and navy Hawaiian shirt that Rich lent him last time he visited Hawkins. Mike’s thumb swipes against her’s lightly in a circular pattern. “You wanna head down?”

“We should check Rich now.” El says instead, feeding off of the abundance of nervous energy radiating off of him. He’s too polite to ask her directly, first thing in the morning to use her powers, but she can tell how anxious he is, chewing on the bottom corner of his lip every split second, holding on to anyone and anything to ground him there.

(Three days after the Snow Ball, when snow was only beginning to fall on the small town of Hawkins, Richie arrived for Christmas, neatly packed and coiled like a spring. The first place Mike brought him was Hopper’s cabin in the freezing air, with permission from Hopper so El sat outside on the wooden steps and waited to hear the sound of shoes in the snow.

And they came. Two boys covered in snow, both identical in face, but one was slightly taller than the other, and the shorter one had wider eyes and clunky frames.

“I swear to fucking god Mikey, if you’re bringing me out here to steal my skin I will kill you.”

“Why would I steal your skin when we have the same skin.”

“See, that sounds like someone who wants to take my skin would say.”

“Would you please relax for like, a second?”

“See, back in Maine, we don’t willingly go outside when it’s fucking baltic outside. It’s just unnatural Mikey.”

She could hear Mike’s loud snort.“So’s hanging around sewers.”

“Investigations, Michael, do not be fooled by- holy shit who the fuck is that!?”

El stood, shivering, bundled up in Hopper’s army jacket and an old pair of Doc Martens they found in a charity shop. She was also wearing thin grey tights and the jean skirt Nancy gave her, because she figured meeting Mike’s brother deserved wearing something nice. Hopper smiled when she asked if it was okay to wear her snowball dress.

“It’s not quite that formal Janey.” He laughed into his coffee, and she’d cocked her head and went for her second nicest outfit.

“This, Rich, is El, you know,” Mike’s face turned a thousand shades of red. “That girl I told you about.”

El can see on Richie’s face when it clicks, his brows knitted then unraveling with a laugh. “Ohhhh, Ellllllll. I remember you mentioning a thing or two.” He grinned, chapped lips pulling apart cheekily. “Kinda weird you keep her in a cabin in the woods Mikey, like, that’s bordering on-”

“Richie!” Mike whined, slugging his brother right in the arm, knocking a whole clump of snow off his shoulder. “Don’t say shit like that!”

“I’m just messing around!” Richie laughed it off, before pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Sorry man, that was douchey.”

For the whole interaction, El just smiled big and wide, smile broadening with every second that passed. Seeing Mike and Richie made them both look so whole. Like unconsciously, they’d been missing parts of themselves that the other could complete. She just stared in awe.

“Hello Eleven,” Richie stood at the final step, his hand held out for her to shake. “It’s so lovely to finally meet the gal that’s driving our Mikey head over heels.”

The term confused her though, her head cocking to the side. “Head over heels…?”

“It means-” Mike began, but cut himself off, face brazen again.

“It means!” But Rich continued, like he didn’t need to think twice. “That he’s crazy for you, bonkers, nutzo, would probably die for you if he probably hasn’t already.”

El peered at Mike beyond Richie’s shoulder, watching as he kicked the snow with the heel of his foot. “He knows about the bad men?”

“Wellllll,” Mike wrung his hands together, nervous energy leaping off him. “See, I figured, that you wouldn’t mind since-”

“It’s okay.” She said, nodding at the both of them. “I don’t mind.”

She stood up so she faced Richie directly, and she could see just how alike they really were, but also how different, like how Mike’s freckles trailed up his nose and forehead when Richie’s splattered across his cheeks. And the glasses. They made Richie’s eyes huge, big and wide and peering out at everything.

“Hi.” El breathed, and his grin in response was so big it could smash pavements.)

“You sure?”

She nods. “Sure.”

“Guys! Get your asses in here!” He roars out the door, with the party trickling in quickly. El is like a homing signal, or the North of a compass.

“Ready?” Lucas asks, handing her the bandanna.

“I’ll be careful with your bandanna.” El promises, tying it around her head while Max and Mike fiddle with the channel.

She can hear Lucas laughing, probably with one hand on the back of his neck. “I know that El.”

(They all point to her.)

Black melts into vacant, the wetness of the world sticking to her socks. Everything is silent, the sounds from the room brushing away, as Eleven begins walking forward.

“Rich?” She calls out, following whichever way her mind takes her. A shallow stream trickles out of the floor, leading her to where Richie Tozier is a heap of limbs on a flat rock, an island in a circle of other teenagers, all varying heights.

“How’d you know I’d be here?” He asks, holding his hand up to block a sun that doesn’t travel to this place. The light is washed and grey, like all of them are stuck under water, lost to the world.

“We’re your friends, jackass.” A tall, stringy boy with sandy curls says, joining him on the rock, posture stiff as he kneels down. “Of course you’d be at the Barrens.”

Richie grins, but it’s more of a grimace. “You know me too well Stanley.”

Eds clenches his fists to his side. “I called them when you weren’t there this morning. You really freaked me out Richie, like seriously, what the fuck.”

Richie’s eyes soften, his hand held out for Eds to take it, but he doesn’t even acknowledge it.

“I think what Eddie is trying to say is,” the dark skinned boy, with a smooth, comforting voice says, kneeling down on the rock opposite him. “Is that we’re concerned about you.”

“Guys, I’m fine. I just gotta give it a few days for it to blow over before Mags and Went cool down again.”

The group all share an uncomfortable glance.

“But we’re wo-worried ab-about you Rich,” one of them says, looking at all of them. “We-we want to help, in, in, anyway we can.”

“But since you can’t stay at one of their houses’ all the time this summer,” the lone girl states.

“We’ve designed a rota to keep you safe!” The chubby boy explains, hands on his waist. “We’re all, really really worried Rich.”

El stands across from Richie, and if she was truly standing with him, he’d be looking right at her, bottle glasses beaming right at her. But it’s weird, because he does look exactly like Mike, only his hair is shorter, closer to his head and curly, and his eyebrows are thicker and he has more spots than Mike, who has a rigorous skin care program that Will told her all about.

“It’s fine,” his voice is taught, barely even there. “I’m fine. Everything will be fine.”

He pauses for a second. “But can I use one of your phones? I have a call I have to make.”

Richie Tozier looks right at her, and for the first time, it feels like someone in this dark place is looking at her, as opposed to through her.

-

They decide to spice things up in the car seating once they pull out of the B&B, so at first opportunity, Dustin dibs the front seat, right next to Steve and Will, smushed in between the two as Nancy and Lucas and El in the middle sit, and then Mike, Max and Jonathan are in the back, all falling back to sleep against each other.

“Hey there.” Dustin grins, clicking his tongue against the bottom of his teeth. “Looks like we’ll have that lesson after all.”

Steve shakes his head, pointing to the open car door. “Just get in will you?”

“After you m’lord.”

“Dustin, which one of us has a driver’s license?”

Dustin takes a second to think about that, just for dramatic effect, and while he’s rubbing his thumb thoughtfully against his chin, Steve’s head is thrown back in half-frustration and half-amusement. Dustin has warmed him up in the past two years, and if he didn’t, why would he be getting weekly driving lessons? “Me in six months.”

“You will never get a license if you don’t get in the car.”

Dustin grins, teeth bared and dimples extra dimple-y. “Is that a promise?”

“It’s a threat.” But he laughs while he says it, and Dustin climbs in anyway.

(Dustin has learnt boyhood from piecing together everything he knows from his friends, but manhood and adulthood and being-a-good-human-hood from Steve, even when he worries that Steve doesn’t actually like him.)

“So my friend, where to now?”

“Have you been sleeping the entire way. We’re going to Derry.”

“Have you ever been this North before?” Dustin pesters, “Like, Canada or like, maybe even Alaska.”

“I’ve got cousins in Toronto.” Steve supplies, eyes trained on the road as he finally breaks away from the overhead trees and onto a main road, cars slowly grudging onto the highway as the sun melts beyond the horizon. It’s a pretty sight, Dustin thinks, grabbing Jonathan’s camera left on the floor of the passenger seat and taking a quick snap, hoping that the loud shutter sound doesn’t wake everyone else up. It’s still ass’o’clock here, the sun spreading slowly across the sky. It had been rising when they left the B&B, shortly after El had seen Richie and confirmed his location. Honestly, having a personal tracking device for a friend came in handy when no one but El was picking up.

“Ever been there?”

Steve scoffs, sparing a glance. “Yeah, when I was like, eight.”

“Hey, that’s how old I was when I moved to Hawkins! First time I’d been outside of Gary.”

“Didn’t think you’d be such a city kid, Henderson.” Steve cracks a sly smile.

“Oh yeah, you should’ve seen me, cruising around public transport.”

“Hawkins has public transport, dumbass.”

“Hawkins has less than half the population of Gary, asshole.”

It’s all good natured, warm in the morning sun, the radio low and rifling through the shitty AC. It feels like a scenic episode from a movie, with everyone bathed in the yellow light. Next to him, Will turns over towards the door and lets out a large snore, making Dustin smile. In fact, in the rearview he can see them all asleep in the back; Mike drooling against Nancy’s shoulder, Jonathan crammed against the door to make room for the other two, Max and El’s heads thrown back against the headrests and mouths open wide, Lucas curled up with his bandana wrapped around his head to act as a face mask.

For a second there, Dustin almost forgot about everything that’s stressing him out. He loves Mike, so by extension, he loves Richie, but right now, a not-missing somewhat-harmed teenager in another state can wait while Dustin’s chest is crawling with anxiety, thinking about high school and all the other ways he and his friends are gonna be pulled apart.

He doesn’t really have anyone else to go to, so he turns to face Steve, or at least as best as he can.

“What was freshman year like?”

“What?”

“Y’know,” he sighs. “Your first year of high school. What was it like?”

“I don’t know,” Steve removes on hand from the wheel to scratch the side of his neck. “It was… freshman year. A couple of years ago.”

“I understand time, Steve.” Dustin deadpans, but it’s not out of anger or annoyance, he just wishes prying personal and private information out of Steve didn’t feel so much like a chore. “But what would you rate it out of ten. Leaning towards a nine, or more towards a four?”

Steve weighs the options, rubbing a scruffy, unshaven cheek and sighs, with his whole self, shoulders falling forward. “I’d call it a solid five. It was average. I went from playing basketball in middle school to playing it in high school. I had the same group of friends all the way up, until, you know,” he coughs into his fist. “Senior year. And then uh, I just, went through it. It was…. normal I guess.”

“Normal.” Dustin chews the word out, pulling at the corner of his lips. “How normal?”

“Well, it was better than most people’s freshmen year.” Steve mutters.

(Dustin doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know that he’s talking about Jonathan.)

“Why are you asking about this now? It’s not even July yet. You’ve got like, weeks to think about freshman year.”

(That’s what Mr Clarke said, on the last unofficial counselling appointment he had, which basically just means spending his library class in the AV club room with stolen cups of tea from the staff room, venting all his troubles to his science teacher when Steve was too far away, and calling always felt awkward.)

“We’re gonna get split up next year.” Dustin says quietly, mindful of Will next to him.

“What? How come?”

“Homerooms are alphabetically next year. Mike and Lucas are the only ones who have even a chance of being in the same homeroom and we’re all taking different classes. And there’s not even an AV club in high school, not since 1979!”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a while, just keeps his eyes on the road, and Dustin pulls down the shield to block his eyes from the sun. “Yeah,” Steve says, at the same level as Dustin. “High school always sounds a lot worse than it actually is. In some ways, it’s terrible. But the whole separating thing?” A soft smile wafts over his face, just barely there. “I can already guarantee none of you are gonna part ways any time soon. You’ve been through too much. I mean, can you imagine Will trying to explain to someone what an Upside Down is? Or Jane trying to explain the way her nose bleeds when she lifts shit?” Steve shakes his head. “You won’t have to worry about that. But don’t stick to just them. Join clubs and shit.”

“I am in a club. AV club doesn’t exist in high school.” Dustin practically sulks.

“Join a sport? I’m sure you’ve got some hidden potential lurking under all of that. Do you like sports?” Steve suggests, tone light.

“Not really.”

“You’re not making this easy for me.”

“It feels like nothing's easy anymore!” Dustin grunts, pulling at the front corners of his curls. “Like, none of us have any clue what we want for the future, and like, everyone is 90% sure that some shit is gonna to down around the sixth again, and like, everyone else is kissing girls and I just feel like a giant loser.”

Steve quirks an eyebrow at the outburst. He’s used to it by now, when they’d drive out to the edges of Hawkins and just sit on the hood of the car watching the sun either rise or fall, the stars either melting back into the sky or tearing it apart trying to be seen.

(Dustin is a penter. He keeps everything in and everything in and everything in until the goddamn dam breaks and he’s gushing emotions and sadness everywhere. He figures he got it from his dad dying, the sudden absence overwhelming and not really understanding what a cerebrovascular accident means or how to grieve and mourn someone. In the same respect, Steve closed himself off when Nancy broke up with him, and Dustin thinks he’s never opened again.)

“Nothing happened last year around the sixth. Everyone just got freaked out and it ended up making things worse.” Steve even came home for college, and together, everyone who knows everything sat in the Byers’ house like some sort of vigil.

Steve’s pupil darts to look at Will sleeping soundly, head resting in the crook of the chair and the car door. “And are you sure everyone has?”

“Yeah, Will was sleuthing around with some girl he won’t name back in like, January, kept drawing pictures of her and stuff-” Dustin clamps a hand over his mouth, eyes blown wide. “Aw fuck me, that was supposed to be a secret.”

(Will used to slam his sketchbook shut if anyone wandered over to him, until Dustin caught him in the library using charcoals to trace around a face.

“It’s a girl.”

“Oh?” Dustin probed, resting his chin on his joint fingers. “Tell me about her? She hot?”

Will looked pensive. “She’s pretty.”

“What’s her name?”

Will grinned, nervous and skittish in his own Will fashion. “Gotta keep some element of mystery, right?”)

Steve laughs it off, more bemused than anything else. “Wow, uh, stuck in there Byers.”

Dustin feels his grin broaden, mostly out of pride, until his cheeks almost hurt from how wide it is. “Who’dathunkit, huh?”

The boy next to him rouses for a split second, stealing all the air from Dustin’s lungs, because it really is a secret, judging by how terrified he looked, and Will doesn’t want Mike to know, much less Steve.

“Anyway, don’t think about that right now.” Steve supplies. “Girls in middle school are mean for no reason, but they get better in high school.”

“Promise?” Dustin asks, and if Steve wasn’t driving he’d demand a pinky swear.

“I promise.” Steve says, utterly sincerely. “Now try get back to sleep. Don’t act like I didn’t hear you and Mike fighting over blankets all night last night.”

Dustin grins, pulling off his cap to smooth down the curls at the back of his head. “Thanks man.” His eyes are already sliding shut as each second goes by, nodding off moments at a time.

“Don’t mention it.” Steve grins back.

(“Hey,” Nancy’s head pops between them, just as Dustin’s eyes are shut but he’s not yet sleeping, “That was really nice. What you said to Dustin.”

“You were listening?” Steve sounds more embarrassed than anything else, tripping over his words.

“Just a bit.”

“Don’t tell Jonathan about Will’s girl, okay? Don’t wanna get Dustin flogged for breaking ‘party oath rule #2319’or some shit like that.”

“Do not spill deets on another party members make out habits,” Nancy hums. “Knowing Mike that’s an actual dumbass rule he made up because someone snitched to Hopper.”

“The police chief could give Ted a run for his money.”

Nancy snorts, and Steve chuckles back.)

(Dustin doesn’t know what to make of it all.)

-

Lucas wakes up smushed between El and Nancy, and the sun, blazing down through the van into the second row. Lucas is directly in the middle, meaning there’s no sun shield to save his delicate eyes.

“Awh fuck.” He winces, rubbing at his eyes.

“Mornin’” El mutters between muffled cheeks, a candy bar in her hand. “Sleep well?” Her thick, curly fringe is held back with a lilac ribbon.

“Yeah, it was alright.” Somehow, he ended up getting the couch to himself, but the car nap has left him with an awful creak in his neck. “Am I the last up?”

El nods, just as Max leans over the chair and grins at him. “Yeah sleepyhead, we thought you were in a coma.” Despite her words she still leans down to kiss the top of his head, hovering lightly over his curls. “Have a nice sleep?”

“My neck hurts.”

She frowns in solidarity, leaning down to his ear. “Do you want to use my hoodie as a pillow? It might make you feel more comfortable.”

Six months of dating means weird, oddly touching gestures like this.

It works, weirdly, and now Lucas has someone's hand to hold when the party watches scary movies. Her smile is a dream, her hair smells like cherries, and in the hundreds of kisses and hugs and hand holds they’ve shared in the past few months, she still manages to leave him breathless.

Only she’s private. She likes a line between outside just them and inside just them. She’ll hold his hands in the corridors and walk him to class with a kiss on the cheek, but that’s it, but she’s softer when it’s just the two of them. She lets a few walls down, let’s him wrap an arm around her waist to pull her closer, kiss him longer, lingering.

“If you’re offering.” He says, sliding the hoodie arms around his neck to fashion it like a cape. It might be one of the hottest days of June, only getting hotter the higher they go, but it’s a gesture from his girlfriend, no matter how small or how subtle, so he’s wearing the hoodie.

“Okay, status report.” Mike’s voice rung out through the car, his head propped up next to Max. “Where are we?”

“Vermont.” Steve says up front. “Just a bit out of Montpelier.”

“Just about four hours away.” Will chirps.

“I’m just gonna put it out there,” Lucas says slowly, “What are we gonna do once we get to Derry? We have nowhere to sleep, we’ve never been there before, and we have no idea of where Richie is actually staying.”

“Eds.” El pipes.

“He’s with a guy called Eddie Kaspbrak, I met him last year, but he’s also got other friends he could also be with, so we’ll check there.” Mike explains, and starts rattling addresses until Nancy cuts him off.

“So we’re gonna check all these houses in case he’s there?” Will asks.

“And if worst comes to worst we can check out his house, but we should probably bring Steve’s bat in case.”

(Ah yes, Steve’s Bat™, the tenth member of whatever this hoard of people is. It’s nice not to worry about some supernatural crisis at the end of it all, but also sad, because it shows that most of the time, crime fighting and saving other people means that sometimes the boss at the end of the level is another human just like you.)

So they keep driving. Hours of country passes them by in bright vibrant colours and stunning greens. Through fields of Vermont, over the border of Maine, where they stop for brunch in a neat little café that doesn’t fit all of them.

It’s insane, that any of this is happening. Max’s shoulders brush against his while she eats a pecan croissant. Mike’s arm is thrown over El’s shoulder while he eats a sandwich, Dustin digging into a foot long sub and Will eats a fruit salad with mangos cut into stars. It feels like summer has finally come for them, like for once they can park all of the magic, mystic voodoo-shit that always happens in Hawkins for a split second and hang out on the side of the road in Maine, chilling under a windmill shaped cafe drinking sodas.

Forget-me-nots-sprout on the side of the curb. Will winds the blue flowers around El’s ribbon until she has a crown.

Max rolls her eyes at the bunch of flowers he has in his hand. “Don’t even think about that.”

Lucas, like all of them, is also terrified of high school. High school means middle school only worse. It’s all the same people but bigger. It’s bullies from when they were younger who moved out of middle now older, at the top of the school. People Lucas was really, really excited to see graduate Hawkins Middle, now back in his life.

(No one mentions the ‘R’ word. Same way no one talks about how Lucas has never met Max’s step-dad but her mom loves him, but Neil Hargrove forces Dustin and Mike and even Will to carry a very tense and awkward conversation while waiting for Max to get her school bag together in the mornings, and Lucas waits at the end of the garden.

Sometimes, Lucas hates not having someone other than his parents to talk to about shit like this. His friends try to understand, and do sometimes, but don’t really get it.)

“Hey,” Max brings him back to the group. “Don’t think so hard, you might explode.”

“You’d have to clean it up.”

She wrinkles her small nose. “Ugh, that’s so gross.”

“You mentioned exploding.”

“You brought up the gross part.”

They bicker a lot, but that’s how they do it. They’re not heart eyes and hushed whispers like Mike and El. There’s nothing romantic about them. They’re jaded but fit together, less like a jigsaw and more like an enzyme on a substrate active site.

(High school is scary, because back in California, Max was a track and gymnastic team champion, and now she’s gearing up to actually join the team for scholarship reasons. Max is interesting and cool and funny and makes friends very easily when she feels comfortable, and Lucas can’t help but feel like she’s gonna run off when she meets all her new friends.

“It was either that or cheer squad.” Max had said when she first brought it up. It was late April, the biting cold finally melted away. Max did handstands and cartwheels and tumbles that turned into handstands. “But track looks better on college applications.”

“At least the uniform is cute.”

She’d walloped him in the arm for that, an annoyed expression on her face, the same one she had whenever Dustin or Mike said anything mean about any of the girls in their year. “Hey, less of that.”

He’d kissed her on the cheek to calm her down, promising to go to every meet, and didn’t mention the uniform again.)

“C’mon guys, last stretch.” Nancy calls from the van, waving them all over to her.

“Yeah, so go pee now because I am not stopping at the side of the road again, Mike.” Steve’s head popped out of the window, looking pissed and sounding pissed but not actually pissed off in the slightest.

“You’re a dickhead Steve!”

“Beep beep Mikey! We got three hours left!”

Max held her hand out to pull him up. He stands, dusting off his shorts and her green hoodie. She sends him a slightly bemused look, crossing her arms and cocking her hip and brow.

“Try not to bake alive in the hoodie.”

He grins, nudging her crossed arms with his elbow. “I’ll try not to explode.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just want to say thank you all for reading and ur sweet comments! it really does mean the world !!!  
> also just a small note that i cant find any where to put in this but when bev comes back to derry she stays with ben's family i do adore benverly but the loser's club get a bit pushed to the side in this so im sorry


	4. we both know what we've got to do (head back to where the magic grew)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all the comments and kudos!!!!!! i'm so overwhelmed!!!!!  
> to anyone who is now back to school, i hope you're all hanging in there!! i have exams in three weeks so i'm trying to get this finished by then! there's either one or two chapters left but i can't decide....  
> anyway thank you so much!!!

He remembers Derry being a shithole, but there’s something endearing about Derry in the summer. They cross the first wooden bridge into the town just past two o’clock, the sun streaming through the green leaves of the trees and over the sparkling river. As soon as the sign came into view, Mike’s breath was trapped in his chest, anxiety ripping through him. He’s this close to jumping out of the car and running to town himself, but that could be a bad idea.

 

They pull into the Main Street with the library on the corner, Steve squinting against the surroundings. Out of the nine of them, Mike is the only one who actually knows where he is, but his nerves has tied his tongue. For the last lag of the journey, Nancy sits next to him, his window pulled all the way down on watch for their brother walking among the masses of Derry. Mike practically sticks his head out the window when they pass the arcade.

 

“Everyone remembers what he looks like?” Mike asks, and everyone else can’t help but laugh at him.

 

“I think we have a fair idea buddy.” Dustin says, patting his shoulder from the back seat.

 

“He’s still in town Mike, it’s not like he would’ve left.” Nancy says quietly, just as they pull up in front of the Kaspbrak house. Huffing out a quick sigh of nervous frustration, Mike unclips his seat belt and jumps out of the car.

 

“I know that.” He replies hotly.

 

(Nancy just looks at him, like she sees right through him. Mike can’t help but wonder which twin came first, him or Rich, because the past day and a half has given him a sliver of an idea of what it’s like to be Nancy every time he’s gone off on some elaborate adventure.)

 

Sonia Kaspbrak opens the door with a disgruntled noise, and then does a double take when she sees Mike standing at her door. “I told you to-”

 

“I’m not Richie, it’s Mikey, Mrs Kaspbrak, but is Eddie in?” He corrects her quickly. “It’s urgent.”

 

“He’s out with his friends,” she leans against the door frame, clearly not pleased. “Told me they were going to the library for some summer homework.”

 

Mike nods, and immediately knows that they could be anywhere this godforsaken town.

 

“Thanks very much Mrs Kaspbrak!”

 

“So?” Steve says when he gets into the car. “Was he there?”

 

“Well, he could be anywhere but there.”

 

The car groans in a chorus.

 

“We could split up?” Jonathan offers.

 

“No one knows the place but Mike, someone could get lost.” Nancy says. “What did you say earlier Mike? We just check all his friends houses? That could work.”

 

Steve moans quietly, pushing his forehead against the steering wheel. “Hey Dustin?”

 

“Yup?”

 

“Want to try driving around her for a while?”

 

(Mikey’s last memory of Derry was in the summer. It was around the Fourth of July when Karen Wheeler’s months-old foster application was approved and Maggie Tozier’s government-issued rehabilitation began. These two things seemed to happen at the exact same time, either by fate or something too coincidental. Mike has a birth certificate and a foster file and an adoption certificate, all in what feels like three different names.  _ Mikey. Michael. Mike. _ Like three different people.)

 

(Almost a year ago, he spent a week in Derry while Jonathan and Nancy went looking at colleges in New York. Him and mom stayed in the B&B in town and for one week, Mike Wheeler was Mikey Tozier again, who fit seamlessly back into the life that could’ve been his.)

 

Dustin awkwardly and slowly brings them around to each one of Richie’s friends’ houses Mike can remember, even Stan’s church and the library, and back around to the arcade just in case. If Rich is hiding from his parents then he’s done a good job of it. He’s nowhere to be found, and that just makes Mike freak out even more.

 

When they pull over for ice cream on the side of the street, Mike drops his when someone behind him roughly grabs his shoulder, pushing up against the car and glaring down his nose.

 

“You think runnin’ off is gonna make things any better? Huh?” All Mike could see was the two brown eyes glaring right into his, bloodshot and crazed.

 

“Hey! Asshole!” He can hear Nancy and Steve yelling and pulling at the man’s shoulders. Mike’s head starts screaming for El, as if that’s his first reaction to danger, no matter what’s happening. She’s inside in the ice cream parlor with the rest of the party, while Mike is trapped between this man and a car, Wentworth’s thin hand tight against his neck.

 

“You fucker that’s not him!” Steve yells, finally managing to separate the two of them.

 

“Mike? Mike? Are you okay Mike!” Nancy’s voice is laced with swallowed worry, fear written all over her face.

 

“Michael?” Is all Went says, dark brows furrowed, and for the first time in close to ten years, Mike gets to look at his father—well, his birth father, the one that put him up for adoption when Karen and Ted Wheeler asked. “Mikey is that you?”

 

“Stay away from him.” Nancy stands in front of him, even though he’s taller than her and can see over her head. “I mean it, I swear to God, I mean it.”

 

(She didn’t tell him, but he knows that Nancy’s small handgun is tucked into her handbag. She brought it with her to New York and she brings it home with her to Hawkins. She’s got a licence for it and everything.)

 

“Do you remember me, Mikey? I just-” His voice sounds far away, like he’s miles off, but his hands are wrung and blurry. Mikey doesn’t have a memory of his father but more has the sound of glass shattering, and far off, a child screams, with a voice that still can’t be his. Sounds that push their way to the front of his mind sometimes.

 

“I swear, to God.” Nancy says slowly, and the people of Derry just keep walking past, as if none of this is happening.

 

“I’m here for Rich.” Mikey says, suddenly feeling very small in front of his father. “Do you know where he is?”

 

Wentworth stands a little taller, anger flooding back to him. “No boy, I don’t, and when you find that little bastard I want you to tell-”

 

“Like hell we would.” Nancy announces. “When we find him, we’re taking him home, because we’re his family, and that’s it!”

 

(“We can’t leave him there Nance.” Mike said quietly, and waited for her response. Everyone else was rummaging through all of Will’s odd and uneven camping gear while giggling. Mike just pressed the phone closer to his ear.

 

“I know,” she sighed. “I know Mike. Give me a few minutes and I’ll meet you there.”

 

“Would you mind grabbing something for me? It’s in mom and dad’s room....”)

 

Wentworth’s face contorts into anger, deep and seething under his skin as his knuckles turn white. “Not if I find him first, girlie.”

 

“Alright man that’s enough,” Steve says pushing him away. Steve has taken Billy Hargrove in a fight multiple times and has won once, but no one was there to see it so it doesn’t really count, but no one wants Steve getting his face beat to shit again, as if they all can’t hang out without Steve ending up emotionally and physically wounded. “Just fuck off, right? We’ll leave you alone.”

 

(“Your Dad seems pissed.” Mikey said, crouching low in the bushes outside of the Tozier house. “Is that why you asked me to hide?” Spring Break in Maine, the town suddenly flooded with returning college students. Mike spent six days in the local B&B with his mom and Holly, Richie sleeping at the end of Mike’s bed for the last three days.

 

“Oh yeah, he’s a fucking nutcase.” Rich said, pushing his glasses up on his face. “You should’ve heard him when we were all down at the sewers, said I was making the house smell like shit.” Rich took a second to laugh at himself, something he does practically once a sentence. “I mean, to be fair, I was, but that just gave me more of a reason to go near there.”)

 

“The sewers!” 

 

“Mike?” Nancy’s face is oddly close to his, concern written all over her face. El joins her kneeling on the ground, her hand curled around his wrist. “It was like you passed out or something! Are you okay-”

 

“The sewers, that’s where he is. I know it.”

 

“This like, twin telepathy or something?” Dustin mutters to Will, who elbows him in the side.

 

“If you’re sure.” Nancy nods, and they pile in, and Mike feels like his chest is too small for his lungs and heart while Mikey just wants to see his brother again.

 

-

 

“Mikey?!”

 

“Rich!”

 

It’s funny, watching them reunite. They don’t realize that the universe seems to  _ bend  _ around them. How the sounds and colours become muted and they’re they only thing anyone can focus on. It’s like the stars aligning, or the perfect eclipse, because Mike throws his arms around Richie and Richie holds as tight as he can.

 

Nancy has not done everything right in her life. She deals with it, in her own way, which is actually a very flawed way. For months she carried Barb’s death and all the ugly truth there, seeds of guilt planted in her lungs, growing strong, so now she can’t breath. Nancy has not made all the right decisions. Not always. Even after all these terrible things she’s done to learn from.

 

“What are you doing here!” Richie yells, sinking into the shallow water with Mike. Mike’s hands are grabbing at his bruised cheeks, brows furrowed.

 

(And if he’s crying no one says anything.)

 

“I came here for you dumbass! Why didn’t you tell me what was going on! Why didn’t you call me or something!”

 

There’s a group of disgruntled looking teenagers clumped together, while her own group all pile out of the truck all either stare at the ground or at each other. It’s weird, really, how none of these people would have anything to do with each other if not for the pair of boys sitting in the stream in front of them.

 

Richie looks over to them all, eyes still big and bug-looking. “Jane found me, didn’t she?”

 

El nods, closer to them than anyone else in the stream, the water kissing the soles of her shoes. “Hi Richie.”

 

“Hi, Jane.” He smiles at her. “And, Will, Dustin and Lucas? Nancy!  _ Steve!? _ ” He looks back at Mike, his lips curling in amusement. “What are all of you doing here.”

 

“Road trip.” Dustin says, in his deadpan ‘why-doesn’t-everybody-know-this’ tone. “We all came to find you. Also that’s Jonathan, Will’s brother. You probably don’t know him but neither do we really.”

 

“But why-”

 

“You got kicked out right?” Mike says quietly, slumping into the water further. His light shorts turn dark in the water. Thin fingers trail over the faded bruise on his brother's face. “We came to find you.”

 

Richie’s face falls for a second, his eyes starry in the late afternoon sun. Mike smiles back, and the place gets a little brighter.

 

(Nancy has decided that carrying around all the terrible things she’s done is worth it if it means that Mike and Richie get to be together.)

 

“You didn’t need to.”

 

“But we did.” Nancy cuts in, crossing the stream. She waves at the disgruntled looking teenagers on the other side. “Hi, I’m Nancy.”

 

“Richie’s sister.” The short one says, almost tripping over himself to meet her and shake her hand. Nervous and awkward, with a fanny pack clipped around his waist.

 

“Wanna introduce us?” Max squawks, the sun blazing down around her red crown.

 

Richie nods, standing to full height eagerly, beaming at his friends. “Losers, meet the Party; Dustin, Lucas, Max, Will, Jane and Mikey, then there’s Nancy and her boyfriend Jonathan, and Steve.”

 

(Steve sends a half-hearted salute with two fingers, and Nancy hates how sad it makes her feel.)

 

“Party, welcome to the losers’ club; Bill, Stan, Mike, Bev, Ben and Eddie.”

 

He finishes the list with a small flourish, these two very different groups of people are now connected.

 

And then the universe takes a shuddering gasp. Every atom stalls, every cell in every organism freezes and the very gears of the world grind to a halt. Will Byers collapses into the soft long grass. Blood trickles down El’s lips.

 

Something isn't right in Derry, Nancy thinks.

 

-

 

“Gate.” Richie’s brother’s girlfriend says, which makes no sense to Eddie, but it strikes fear into the gaggle of people led by Richie’s siblings.

 

And Richie, who looks just as freaked.

 

“There’s a gate? Here? In Derry?” Richie looks from Mikey to Nancy and back to Jane, then a quick glance at Will on the ground, surrounded by his brother and the rest of them. “Like a  _ gate?  _ To-”

 

“The Upside Down.” Max finishes, chewing the corner of her lip.

 

“I can close it.” Jane says, in her lilting, stoic voice. “I can close it and-”

 

“No, El, you can’t just-,” Mikey argues, grabbing her hand. “You remember what happened last time. You were out for days!”

 

“I have to close it.” There’s a wordless exchange between the two of them. She looks right at Eddie, cocks her head to the side, and for some odd reason, he feels like he knows her, somehow. Or at least that she knows him. She looks back at Will and her brown eyes soften. “For them.” She says, and Mikey’s head drops.

 

“Do you know what’s going on?” Eddie scrambles for Richie’s hand, melting against his side when Richie’s thin fingers find him. 

 

(They still haven’t talked about Richie kissing him, then almost breaking an arm jumping out the window. Richie was all tall and dark brown eyes and his glasses bumping against Eddie’s nose. The kiss practically swallowed him, giddy shock and excitement starting in his lips and spreading right up to his brain, to his arms to wrap around Richie’s neck and keep him closer until-)

 

“Yeah, sort of, but I can’t, I don’t really know.” He looks down at Eddie, his features all curved to make him look extremely guilty and apologetic. “I can’t really tell you anything.”

 

(He pulled away. Guilt dragged across his face and before Eddie could reach out and grab him again the window was open and his room was full of early summer breeze, Richie falling from his drain pipe.)

 

“Wait, w-what’s going on? What’s the g-g-gate?”

 

“It’s a portal to an alternate dimension, and if it doesn’t close, this whole town is completely fucked.” Dustin explains, using his hands and eyes as he gestures. “Will spent a week in it and he’s still getting aftershocks and shit.”

 

“El can close it.” Lucas says. “She’s done it before and she can do again.”

 

Bev, the only girl in their group, steps forward, all lithe legs and creamy pale skin. “What’s in the upside down, or whatever?”

 

“Monsters.” Jane says, as she looks to the drain pipe jutting out of the ground. “Bad things.”

 

“An alternate dimension between ours and the next.” Mikey’s voice is quick and breathless like Richie’s always is. “And it’s full of flesh eating monsters that chew through walls.”

 

“And eat cats.” Dustin mutters under his breath.

 

“We’ve faced monsters in there before.” Their Mike says, and the rest of them all nod in agreement, but no one really remembers anything. Its only with the scars on their palms, jagged and rough but healed, do they remember anything about that summer two years before. They’ve spent hours just looking at them, admiring them, maybe, but there’s no deed to be proud of, just a red-tinted memory of how it felt once it was over.

 

Stan’s sharp intake of breath is heard around the barrens, through the tall spindly trees that hang over them all, down the rushing river, flowing further and further away from the sewers.

 

“Well,” Richie breaks the silence, pushing his glasses up his face. “That makes sense.”

 

“What does?” Ben asks from the rock.

 

“That there’s a gate, to some mystical portal or whatever, in the same place as-”

 

“Same place as your clown.” Mikey finishes. He’s sitting next to Will, using his hoodie as a pillow for him to rest his head.

 

“Or like, some kind of verse in between.”

 

“Like a capillary.”

 

(Mikey and Richie are two halves of the same whole and they fit together way too well.)

 

(“He asked me to stay.” Richie told them, weeks after Bev moved away.

 

“In Indiana?” Stan asked.

 

Richie looked down at the ground then back up at the starless sky. “Yeah, with him and his family.”

 

Eddie’s stomach dropped. He grabbed his arm, his bone back in place but the skin still tender, breath coming up shallow and wispy like he needed his inhaler again.

 

“But you’re here now.” He said, his eyes meeting Richie’s.)

 

(Richie is good at hiding the regret in his eyes.)

 

“But we already fought off It. It’s not coming back for another twenty seven years.” Stan says, voice erratic. “Right?! Isn’t that what we did?!”

 

“A gate to the Upside Down is still dangerous left open.” Mikey sounds assured and determined. “We have to close it.”

 

“J-Jane will j-j-join us while you guys all lo-ook after Will.” Bill stutters out. The gears in his head are churning and turning. “There’s too many of us to all go down to-to the sewers, so we’ll take J-Jane with us.”

 

“Oh great? Sewers?” Steve scoffs.

 

The boot of the truck opens with the harsh grinding of metal on metal against everyone’s ears. Steve pulls out a baseball bat embedded with nails from the trunk, slings it over his shoulder like it’s the most casual. At first, he doesn’t notice the stares all coming from the Loser’s Club, leaning against the truck in the most nonchalant fashion. When he does, he just nods, his grin tight in his cheeks.

 

“Ready when you guys are.” He says, with such a sarcastic flourish you’d think he wouldn’t want to be there at all.

 

“It’s okay Steve,” Richie reassures him, his hand falling from Eddie’s grip. “We can handle it.”

 

“We’ve d-d-done it a-a-alone before.” Bill says, in an attempt to throw him off.

 

“Listen, demogorgans and demodogs-”

 

“Demo-what’s?”

 

“Are deadly, and believe me it’s not exactly how I wanted to spend the summer crawling around in a sewer. But I don’t care if you’ve done this ten times alone, you still need a babysitter for your asses.”

 

“Steve  _ is  _ a really good babysitter.” Nancy smiles, one that creeps across her face like the way Richie’s does. “You’re in good hands.”

 

“Plus,” He continues, slipping down the soft dirt on the heels of his feet. “Hopper will kill me if he finds out I left Jane alone with a bunch of strangers.”

 

“So,” Eddie starts, wiping his clammy hands on his shorts. “Back to Neibolt?”

 

(Eddie vaguely remembers breaking his arm in Neibolt. Flying, flying- falling, until he hit the table. His back still aches when he has too much shit in his school bag and his arm is sore sometimes but oddly, strangely, he can only briefly remember why was ever there in the first place.)

 

(He’s running on instinct. To  _ survive survive survive. _ )

 

“Back to Neibolt.” Richie confirms. He grabs his hand and squeezes tight, while everyone around them heads to either the van or the bikes. Richie leans down to push their foreheads together, the action both too intimate and too overwhelming.

 

“You okay Rich?” He whispers.

 

(“Can I tell you something?”

 

“Anything, Rich.”

 

“When I was in Hawkins, that Christmas after, you know, It, I forgot. I completely forgot what had happened. It wasn’t until I got back to this shithole did I remember anything that fucking happened.”

 

“You forgot about It?”

 

“Yeah Eds,” Richie’s eyes were round, but full of light. “Every time I go to Hawkins, for once, I don’t feel haunted by It.”)

 

“Yeah Eds,” his voice sounds tight. “I’m okay.”

 

Eddie just squeezes his hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again!!!


	5. the witching hour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh ho ho !! an update !

Neibolt is nothing like El has ever seen before. It’s old, and rustic and the floorboards creak when she pushes too much of her weight on it. It’s the oldest thing El has ever seen, and it’s the one thing pushing away any fear.

 

(Closing a gate is easy, really, this time there’s no demodogs and Will’s life wasn’t in danger and everyone she knows and loves are safe. She’s just doing a favor for Richie.)

 

“This is quite the place.” Steve says, poking an exposed hole in the wall with the blunt front of his bat. “How old do you reckon it is?”

 

“Before Derry was even a town, I’d say.” Ben supplies, as the group of them creep through the old building.

 

(El can’t describe how she feels. Or what she feels. It’s as if there’s a dark hole beneath this whole town and she’s felt it the moment she stepped foot in it. She hears faint cries, hundreds of children weeping somewhere in the depths of the town. One little boy waiting for his brother to come and bring him home. The lingering ghosts that are still withering here.)

 

Bill takes the lead.

 

“It’s-s lair is in the b-b-basement, down the well.”

 

He brings them to the basement, down creaky stairs, and in a weird way, it makes her think of the Wheeler’s. At the centre of the room, a stone well rises from the floor, a pile of rope left discarded. The whole room feels stunted, even the air and dust is frozen around them. She stands on the top of the stairs while the Loser’s Club all files out around the room.

 

“We haven’t been here in a while.” Eddie says. His shoulders brush with her’s. “It’s not, easy, I guess, to be here.”

 

(El hasn’t been to the lab since the gate closed. Hopper went back for Dr Owens and the body of Bob Newby, but El spent the day curled up with Joyce, the whole world on pause for the day.)

 

“Thank you.” She says. “For taking me here.” It’s always important to be polite, the Hopper in her head says.

 

Eddie beams at her, flicking his short fringe from his face. “Rich trusts you, so do I. We all do.”

 

“You’re friends with Mike?”

 

They both watch as Bill unwinds the rope, pulling at each knot as he slips it down the well.

 

“Well, me, Bill, Stan, Richie and Mikey were all in the same kindergarten. Bev says she remembers him but she can’t even remember the name of our teacher.” Eddie chuckles, shrugging his shoulders lightly. “I remember,” he licks his lips, suddenly stuck in the moment. “I remember my dad couldn’t tell the difference between them.”

 

“My dad can’t.”

 

“Rich really likes you. Whenever he comes back from Hawkins he’s always raving about you, saying you can do this cool shit with your mind.” His voice quickens with his excitement, hands fanning and jittery. “Richie says Mikey told him that you once flipped a truck? Is that true?”

 

Her face feels bright and warm. It’s like whenever Lucas and Dustin says something nice to her, or when Mike smiles at her. E ddie is his own personal sunshine, with a nervous twitch and big brown eyes. “The truck was to-”

 

“Jane?” Bev calls, pulling at the chain around her neck. “We’re ready to go.”

 

El climbs down the well.

 

(She left Will with Mike and Jonathan near the truck. Peace drifting from her step-brother on the grass.)

 

El climbs.

 

(“So, it’s been a year.”

 

“Three hundred and sixty five and a half days.”

 

“Or three hundred and sixty five and a half days.” Hopper grinned, then sobered. “Can I ask you something?”

 

She cocked her head. “About school.”

 

“Uhm, we’ll get to that in a bit.”

 

“What is it?” She felt herself getting more impatient.

 

Hopper looked over the rim of his coffee cup. The rest of Hawkins knew about the police chief’s illegitimate daughter from Chicago, and her curly hair all bundled up with ribbons, and her instant friendship with Ted Wheeler’s son’s gang. “How would you feel about moving out of the cabin?”

 

“Out?”

 

“Yeah, a new house.”

 

She leant forward in the booth. “With a mortgage?”

 

“Yeah, a mortgage.” Hopper joins his hands and breaks them, rubbing the back of his neck. “And some people?”

 

“Good people?”

 

The corner of his lip lifts in a smile. “The best people.”)

 

El climbs.

 

(Above the Byers-Hopper faded couch from the cabin, there’s a single portrait of Sara Hopper hung. Jane Hopper is all dark hair and dark eyes and sallow tan skin, earned from hundreds of days out in the sunshine. Sara Hopper was all light hair and light eyes and light skin, and Jane has never met her but she wears a cerulean ribbon around her wrist, and sometimes in her hair.)

 

Eddie’s smiling face meets her at a hole in the wall.

 

“Took your time.” He says, while pulling her into the alcove.

 

“She had to be careful.” Steve says from above them, his bat hanging from his belt. “Awh shit.”

 

“Language.” El quips, moving further and further through the opening until there’s enough room to stretch her legs.

 

“I forgot I’m not fourteen anymore.” Steve’s head is bent at the neck, his shoulders hunched forward.

 

Richie materializes next to her. Even he’s too tall for the tunnels. It’s just her Eddie that are barely brushing the roof. “You okay Jane?” he asks, squeezing her hand, the dim light from their torches bright in his glasses.

 

Instead of answering, she just nods, slightly shaky and slightly haggard. Last time she did this she had Hopper (Dad) with her, armed with his rifle but also just there, not just to save Hawkins but to be there for her.

 

“It’s down this way.” Mike says. He has a bolt gun strung around his shoulder, strapped with a belt of silver nails. Just in case, he’d told her, before grabbing the rope and slipping beneath the cobbled rocks.

 

“We can’t split up.” Stan says, and rubs his cheek self consciously. Back at the Barrens she could see thin scars all along the sides of his face, litering his cheeks in small scratches.

 

(“He fell on a milk bottle when we were kids, I think.” Richie says weeks later when she asks. His brows furrow and he bites his lip. “Stan fell on a milk bottle, I’m sure. Stan Uris.”)

 

“Wouldn’t be the best idea.” Ben says.

 

They all look to Bill, either for answers or guidance. He manages to give them both.

 

“W-w-w can’t-t split up ag-again.” He manages. “J-just in case.”

 

The sewers of Derry are damp and dark, a steady stream of ankle high water running on the ground.

 

“Oh fuck,” Steve gags, just as the smell hits him. It’s too tempting to just turn around now. “Is there any alternative way to get there?”

 

“Nope.” Richie flashes a wolfish smile. “Hope you like swimming Steve.”

 

“At least there’s no fucking baby heads floating around in it.” Eddie remarks, his voice tight and nasally.

 

“Baby heads?” Steve’s voice is faint and horrified. “Did you just say-” he starts, before Richie pushes past him in some sort of run-and-jump maneuver.

 

“Geronimo my boys!”

 

Richie jumps right in, his feet meeting hard concrete.

 

The black water crawls its way up the sides of the tunnel, moving away from the floor in quick droves. El tastes blood on the corner of her lip, but she’s smiling too wide to notice.

 

“Holy shit.” Bev swears, covering her mouth with her hands in awe.

 

“Dude she’s like freaking Moses!” Richie yells, and starts running along the dry floor.

 

“Not bad, Jane.” Steve bumps her shoulder, and walks behind her as they creep along the tunnels.

 

Bill hesitates at the end of the last one, his nose twitching as they all peer around the corner. They wait in pensive silence, waiting until Bill finds the strength to go on.

 

(“You don’t have to come.” Richie said, as they all bundled into Hopper’s van, ready to drive to the house on Neibolt street. Bill had spent minutes staring at the ground, deep in thought and quiet. “We’ll find our way.”

 

“No,” His voice was just above a whisper. “I want to come. I have to come.”)

 

It’s a wide room, puddles of water in various parts. At the very centre, a mound of broken toys and clothes crawling toward the ceiling, where the gate pulses above them, full of white light.

 

And there, in the corner of the open room, There’s a plank of wood nailed to skateboard with a bolt, erect, dug into the ground like a cross. Written across the wood says ‘G.D’, a yellow raincoat draped across the arms, just inside one small sliver of light from the gate above them.

 

It’s a grave marker, El realizes, something in remembrance of someone.

 

(She wears the ribbon on her wrist for Sara, and blue butterflies floating in the air make her think of Kali. Her sisters, surrounding her, in every way they can.)

 

(After they buried Will, she and Mike and Dustin and Lucas followed a trail of flowers and crosses left to guide one boy home, electric candles flickering in the daylight. It led all the way to the train tracks.)

 

And flowers-

 

Nothing grows in the Upside Down. It is all things opposite to growth and healing and hope. But this lair—Its lair—is almost like an antechamber, a place where people—children, hundreds of voices crying out—go to die. But some, like her new friends and Eds and Richie all left. And they left whole.

 

(Will and Nancy and the Party and _dad_ all went to the Upside Down and came back. She woke up and got herself out and if that’s not _proof evidence_ that where there is _death_ there is even-)

 

El pulls the ribbon from her curls, the flowers still woven around it, and keeps it in her hand, holds the fragile life close, the soft petals pushed against her palm. She rests it on the crown of Georgie’s memorial, just on the hood of the raincoat.

 

She doesn’t know why, but she thinks of Sara.

 

(-life. Or at least the potential of life. The potential that someone is still there in mind body or spirit.)

 

(And isn’t that enough, in these dark lairs? That even in these realms, there is always potential, and that’s all that matters.)

 

El uses her powers for good now. She’ll close the gate so no one else, no other family loses someone they love to a lifeless world.

 

She looks back to the gaping wound above them, seeming untouchable.

 

“I’ll close the gate.” El says, and begins climbing the mound, an ode to stolen childhoods and a monument to lost children.

 

(And if she do this one thing for one more person, than she can say she did a good job.)

 

(That she can say she was as good as the Party, selfless and caring fo no other reason than being kind.)

 

(So she can say that she is as good as her dad. Despite always feeling like a black hole too, Jim Hopper is a light Jane can only try to emulate.)

 

El holds her hand out, and begins to sew the universe back together.

 

-

 

“So, a few months ago,” Max starts, off, tapping her foot, pulling hair from her face. “My stepdad adopted me.”

 

“What?” Dustin reels, unsure of what to say next. “That’s…?”

 

“It’s alright, I guess.” She shrugs, so he doesn’t pry. “But at least one good thing came from it.”

 

Dustin doesn’t quite understand what’s going on. He feels more out of place in Derry than any time he spent in the Upside Down. It’s a beautiful town, with a river running through it. But then he also hasn’t seen Derry during autumn or winter, but in the summertime, the world is blown wide open by the sun, the green leaves a bright, clear colour, with veins running through. The water sparkles as it runs through the rocks, and Mike, being himself, is pacing along the rocks, while Lucas throws stones into the calm flow. He also doesn’t know how to speak to Max about real, proper things. Max, and girls in general are really, really cryptic, so he just nods, and hopes she’ll keep going.

 

Max pokes his shoulder. “Don’t you wanna know what it is?” She’s teasing him, in that tough-not-actually-joking way she has.

 

Max is cryptic, and expects El-level powers to be able to read her mind. “Uh, what is it?”

 

“Well, since I’m now legally his kid,” She rolls her eyes while she explains. They’re sitting on the bridge looking over the barrens, not a train in sight. “I can be Max Mayfield-Hargrove, or Max Hargrove-Mayfield, in school.” Max takes a small breath, looking too awkward to say anything, then sighs. “If I change my name, me, you and Jane will be in the same class, and next to each other in the year book and stuff, and I don’t want to be by myself next year so-”

 

Dustin hugs her. Throws his long arms around her and doesn’t let go for a few seconds. He doesn’t really know what to say.

 

(“Is it weird that I don’t really like Max anymore?” He asked Steve, bundled up in millions of layers. The Wheeler’s New Year’s party had been going on for a few hours, the party hiding the in basement waiting for Hopper to sneak El downstairs. “Like obviously I still like her as a friend and all, but not like-like her anymore, and not just because she like-likes Lucas.”

 

“You probably never really liked her in the first place.” Steve said, swirling the flute of champagne Mrs Wheeler had given him., before necking it down. “And I think I got an aneurysm from the amount of times you said like in that sentence.”

 

Dustin lifted an eyebrow. “Go on?”

 

“Well, I’m not gonna be a psychology major next year or anything-”

 

“Are you still undeclared-”

 

“Don’t even ask,” Steve scoffed, going to take a swig of his drink before realising its all gone. “Anyway, as I was saying, you probably liked having a crush more than crushing on Max.”

 

“How do you know that?”

 

“Because that’s how the majority of my relationships started.” He said, with just a touch of bitterness to it.

 

“All except for-”

 

“Guys!” It was Nancy, Mike and Richie, in their Christmas finest. “The countdown starts in five minutes!”

 

“Yeah, don’t get left in last year!” Richie snorted.

 

Steve laughed. “Oh yeah, I’ll drag you back in.”

 

“Catch me first, dickhead.” Richie knelt down, rolling a snowball in his hands and milled it at him.

 

Instead it hit Dustin, right on the side of his face.

 

“Tozier, you are absolutely, fucking-”

 

“Is this a snowball fight?! Are we having a snowball fight!” Will’s giddy face popped around the door, followed by Lucas, Max and Jonathan.

 

Nancy just sighed as they all filled out into the front lawn. “Guys, we’re not missing the countdown for a freaking snowball fight- Jonathan!”)

 

“I’m changing it as soon as we get out of high school, just a warning.” Max adds.

 

“To what?” Dustin really can’t help it, and he knows he deserves any abuse from it. “Sinclair?”

 

She hits him clean in the arm.

 

-

 

The Upside Down of Derry is a tribute to all things decaying and already dead. All the despair has its own hold on everything here. The water runs with blood and the arching tunnel into the sewers crumbles into nothingness. He leans over over a rippling hole in the ground, no other sounds coming from the world, but a panting, haggard noise, as something tries to crawl up towards him. It’s not doing very well, Will notes, with a bland expression. It can’t be a demogorgon and it’s definitely not the mind flayer. It makes low, keening sounds, almost as if it’s wounded, or sleeping, and Will woke it up. But he remembers he can outrun a demogorgon for a week. This isn’t scary. This isn’t scary.

 

“Hiya Willie,” something whispers, through the airless atmosphere. “Ya lost Willie? Ya hurt?” There’s a sharp yelp, as if it stumbled through darkness. “Wanna give a friend a hand Willie? We’re all friends here, aren’t we Willie? Everything’s all topsy-tervy and downside and upside down here isn’t it oh!-” the voice breaks off in howling cackles. “Wanna give old Pennywise a hand?” The voice is begging him, crying out like a lost child who needs help.

 

One, thin hand slides it’s way from the hole, wearing off-white gloves and frills, grasping, clutching at something impossible, that isn’t there at all. That’s the nature of the Upside Down. Seeing isn’t believing. When Will went missing the first place he went was his home, and even though it looked like home, it all fell apart when he tried to find safety.

 

“Please, Willie, for your pal, Pennywise, the _dancing clown-_ ”

 

(“Did I ever tell you about Mr. Baldo??” Bob said, his hand on the wheel. The memory felt so far off, rounded at the edges.)

 

(“Hey kiddo, would you like a balloon?”)

 

Yellow eyes peering up at him, smeared red rims around them.

 

(“Only this time I didn’t run. This time, I stood my ground. I just looked at Mr. Baldo, in his stupid face, and I said ‘Go away. Go away!’”)

 

(If anything, Bob taught him to be brave, or at least, how to feel brave, even when he didn’t.)

 

“Go away!” Will yells into the abyss, and seconds later, he’s back in the light, Mike’s, and Dustin’s and Lucas’ worried faces hovering over him, melting into clean relief when he opens his eyes.

 

-

 

They return three hours later, just as the sunset crests over the tall trees, and the butter yellow sky melts through shades of amber and a dark russet red. Mike is sitting on the very edge of the dirt track when the van pulls up, battered from all the driving the entire two days.

 

“What took you so long?” Mike all but demands when the first door slides open.

 

“Don’t get yer’ panties in a twist, we had to stop for gas.” Richie snarks, tripping out of the van with Ben and Mike hot on his heels.

 

“You fuckers owe me so much gas money.” Steve grunts, hefting an unconscious El out of the van, and resting her on the ground.

 

The last time El closed a gate, it was almost two years ago, and when she came home to the Byers’, Hopper held her like she was the most precious thing he’d ever had to hold. It took her half a day to come around again, swaddled with Will and her on either side of Joyce Byers.

 

“She close it?” Mike kneels down, brushes the stray curls collecting over her eyes. He notices her ribbon is missing. Her short eyelashes just brushed the curves of her cheeks.

 

“I think so, it went all dark and she passed out afterward.” Bev says, biting the edge of her lip. “Is that supposed to happen?”

 

“This happened last time.” Lucas chirps. “She just gotta sleep it off.”

 

“She w-was am-mazing.” Bill says, and his eyes are red-rimmed and his voice sounds raw. “She w-was like,”

 

“A superhero.” Mike says softly, and bends ever so slightly to kiss her on the forehead, just chastely, quickly, before Will can make kissy-noises.

 

“That’s our Janey for you.” Richie smiles down, then squints at the setting sun. “Mikey, can I have a word? Hermano a hermano? ”

 

“Nancey too?” Mike asks, and they both turn their head to where Nancey and Steve stand next to Jonathan, coaxing food into his hands. Jonathan tucks a stray piece of hair behind Steve’s ear, smiles awkwardly with Nancey.

 

“The fuck going on over there?” Richie snorts.

 

“She seems a bit busy.”

 

(But they had a whole thing planned, like when they were younger and used to put on comedy sketches for a very bored looking Ted Wheeler and a very enthusiastic Karen Wheeler with her polaroid.)

 

They cross the small stream in long strides, Richie’s hand held loosely in his.

 

“This place smells like shit, Rich.” Mike bemoans, begrudgingly crossing his legs and dropping down onto the ground.

 

“Mikey-”

 

“I mean c’mon Rich, we can’t talk somewhere else? Like I don’t know, the van? Or like-”

 

“Hawkins?” Richie sends him a look, then drops his head to the ground. “What’re you doing here Mikey? You didn’t have to come all this way for me-”

 

“Yes I did. Look at me Rich,”” Mike says urgently, grabbing both his hands. “Look at me.”

 

The face that peers up mirrors his own, right down to the myriad of freckles ripping across his cheeks, to his messy black curls, to his bright brown eyes, blown open in the evening light. He looks scared too.

 

“I didn’t go looking for you four years ago to not help when you need me.” Mike says softly, and watches as Richie’s eyes glaze over.

 

“I’m glad you found me, by the way.” Richie’s voice is rough. “I mean, some pretty shit things have happened to me, but,” he pauses, chewing the corner of his lip. “Never you man.”

 

Mike shrugs. “Getting split up was pretty fucked up.”

 

“Yeah, what the fuck was that about?”

 

“You could’ve grown up with us.” Mike says aloud, voice tittering on sad.

 

Richie snorts. “Imagine me, Richard Wheeler. That’s a hoot n’ a half.”

 

(“How come Mom’s crying?”

 

“Richard hid a Christmas card in the cutlery drawer and she’s only found it now.” His dad said, idly turning the page of the newspaper.)

 

(There is a place in Karen Wheeler’s heart for Richie. It’s full of pain and regret and if she could she’d bring him back home.)

 

“You could be though.” Mike blurts. “All we need are your-”

 

“Hey!” Stan yells from across the barrens. “We’re getting ice cream! Anyone who’s not in the van has to cycle.”

 

“Fuck you Uris!”

 

“Don’t touch my fucking bike!”

 

Mike sighs, brushing the dirt off his knees, and heads up toward the rest of them.

 

He can’t help but feel like he’s running out of time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did YALL GET THE KINGDOM HEARTS REFERENCE!!!!  
> also, i really tried to demonstrate that like ,,, pennywise is injured / dying (??) / in sleep , and woke up when will arrived in the upside down the way will has those episodes or flashbacks  
> thank u so much!!!!!! im trying to end it for next chapter because a ! gal ! has ! exams ! and ! is ! busy !  
> but seriously ,,, i love you all  
> edit : lmao I actually said ‘gloved in off-white gloves’ iGNORE THAT

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!!! next chapter should be up soon!! i have them all prewritten bar the last one so thank you!!!


End file.
